When it comes to green building, the first place we all go to is the sun. If you’re keen on building a green home, or are thinking of remodeling your home to make it eco friendly — shifting to solar energy for electricity needs is, today, the easiest and a high-impact way of going green. And we’d like to make it clear – it’s a misconception that solar or photovoltaic systems can work only in tropical areas with loads of sunlight. Switzerland, a country with temperate climate and lots of cloud cover (and let’s not forget all the snow) has the first and largest number of closed structures built by the passivhaus (Passive House) model, which uses only solar energy to fulfill the cooling, heating and lighting requirements of a home. And it may surprise you to know, solar energy systems (incl. the passivhaus standard) are most popular among Scandinavian countries. So there’s little reason why they should not work in our own Olympia.

A few other reasons why you should seriously consider shifting to solar energy:

1. Of all the renewable sources, solar energy is the easiest to generate on an individual or household level. While on a large scale commercial level, wind power or hydropower are cheaper sources than solar energy, Olympia does not have the average wind speeds needed to make wind power feasible, and hydropower would be too cumbersome.

2. Technological advancements and innovation are making solar panels more efficient, cheaper and feasible for use. Already, third generation solar cells (low price and high efficiency) are in the market and as market competition increases, manufacturers are trying hard to reduce prices. China plans to create solar power grids that will be able to supply power at just 10 cents per kWh and First Solar, a primary solar systems manufacturer stated that its costs in 2009 had gone down to 93 cents per watt and benefits of this would go directly to consumers.    

Comments are closed.